Review of The Omen (1976) by Peter W — 29 Apr 2012

"Please Daddy No" DAMIEN THORN.

The High-Speed, grainy film of the slow-motion bullet rushing through the church at film's end is literally STUNNING!!!

AVE-SATANI !!!!! that (Jerry Goldsmith) music!!!!!

(AVE SATANI explained: "Ave Satani" is the theme song to the film The Omen (1976) composed by Jerry Goldsmith.[1] The Omen won an Oscar for Best Score, with Ave Satani nominated for Best Song,[2] one of the few foreign language (Latin) songs ever to be nominated.

The title means "Hail Satan" in Latin. In an interview,[3] Goldsmith says that his idea was to create a kind of Satanic version of a Gregorian chant and came up with ideas while talking with the London choir-master of the orchestra that was helping him. He decided to create something like a Black Mass, inverting Latin phrases from the Latin Mass. The choir-master, according to Goldsmith, was an expert in Latin and helped him come up with phrases - instead of saying "Hail Mary", they decided on "Hail Satan", and so on. So the song contains various Latin phrases inverting Christ and the Mass, such as "Ave Versus Christi", meaning "Hail Anti-Christ", and "Corpus Satani", an inversion of "Corpus Christi", the body of Christ. The resulting lyrics are an inversion of the Roman Catholic rite of the consecration and elevation of the body and blood of Christ during the Mass (see Eucharist in the Catholic Church).

A version of the song has been produced by the band Fantômas, who altered some of the lyrics so that they mean "smallest blood, body spirit" rather than "we drink the blood, we eat the flesh," and added the word "Rotted". Other versions of the original song have been performed by the Italian vocalist Survio Tulio, and by Gregorian. It has been used in mixes of sinister music[4] and such a concept was made into an album by Van Helsing's Curse involving Dee Snider and other musicians, entitled Oculus Infernum.

The British heavy metal band Black Sabbath have used the song as an intro for many shows and tours during their tenure with Tony Martin.[citation needed] The American groove metal band Machine Head previously used this as an introduction track to their live performances some of which have been recorded.[citation needed] (See Elegies and Hellalive). The Norwegian black metal band Mayhem has also used the song as an intro to shows.[citation needed].

Latin Lyrics and English Meaning.

These are the Latin phrases which repeat throughout the song, and their English translations:

Sanguis Bibimus ("We drink the blood.").

Corpus Edimus ("We eat the body.").

Prode Corpus Satani! ("Bring forth the body of Satan!").

Ave! ("Hail!").

Ave, Ave! Versus Christus! ("Hail, Hail Anti-Christ!").

Ave Satani! ("Hail Satan!").

The choir master's Latin contains a number of errors. Thus "sanguis" should be "sanguinem", "ave satani" should be "ave satana(s)", "corpus satani" should be "corpus satanae", "versus Christus" should be "antichriste", although it may mean "Enemy of Christ" or "Opponent of Christ" (in which case, however, it should be "verse Christi", as the phrase is in vocative), and "tolle corpus" should be "elevate corpus".

Novelist and Screenplay-writer David Seltzer's Vision of the Anti-Christ brought to screen by Richard Donner. Very Freaky and Scary Academy-Award Winning music by Jerry Goldsmith breathes life into this great film.

Director Richard Donner doesn't treat the Anti-Christ as a straight-forward HORROR FILM, instead it's a drama, where "the kid: Damien" may or may not actually be the Anti-Christ and maybe its just the ordinary-sane husband and wife Robert and Kathy Thorn driven mad by a conflagration of negative coincidences.

Of course, Damien is the Son of the Devil, brought into human form by a Jackal.

Imagining the Son of a Jackal as being The Anti-Christ should make for funny fodder around the water-cooler, but the way Richard Donner constructs everything, The Omen is very terrifying.

Avi Satani . . . THE MUSIC by Jerry Goldsmith is easily The Best Horror Film Score along with John Carpenter's Halloween AND Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells excerpted for The Exorcist, and Wendy Carlos' The Shining..

On the DVD-extras there are a lot of coincidental, and unexplained real-life deaths associated with the making of THE OMEN . . . its all real: The Devil and stuff, even though people don't believe in The Devil his real!